Nick Nairn confirms new restaurant and lifestyle shop are ready to open

Celebrity chef Nick Nairn's new restaurant is ready to welcome customers - and it even has a new lifestyle shop on site.

The TV personality and his wife Julia, who is also his business partner, have been busy prepping the restaurant – called Nick’s at Port Menteith – developing an outdoor seating area and creating a new menu.

After Covid hit in March, the site in Stirlingshire, where Nick's Cookschool is based, was able to open temporarily in the summer as “Pop-up Pizza at the Port”, but it was forced to close again as lockdown measures tightened for the hospitality sector.

But now, as restrictions have eased, the restaurateurs are back in business and will be welcoming customers to their new restaurant from 12pm tomorrow - Friday, 25 June.

"The pizza oven exploded yesterday,” Nick said, “but we’re definitely good to go now.”

The restaurant will seat 40 indoors, with a further 80 covers outside under a stretch tent and a series of pergolas.

The outdoor seating space was originally built as part of the Cookschool, but, due to it not being able to reopen under the current social distancing guidelines, the couple decided to get creative and turn it into an al fresco dining area for the new restaurant.

"During the second lockdown, we had the time to turn what was going to be a BBQ area for the school into an outdoor restaurant,” Nick said.

Nick's at Port Menteith is opening from 12pm on Friday, June 25.

"We had the pop-up pizza place in the summer, but this time we have quite a bit more to offer – more and the menu and a bigger seating area.

"It's a beautiful spot, not far from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling, and family-friendly. And dog-friendly of course.”

The new menu will include pizza, but also other main dishes and fresh seafood.

Nick’s at Port Menteith will be open from Thursday to Sunday each week from 12pm.

Bookings are full from 6.30pm tomorrow evening (Friday, 25 June), but Nick reassured there is plenty of space still during the day.

The 62-year-old, who became the youngest Scottish chef to win a Michelin Star in the early 1990s and who has cooked for the Queen, also runs the Kailyard Restaurant at Dunblane Hydro.

He has been keeping busy during lockdown by filming his At Home With The Nairns cooking classes.

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